TORCH Winter Series – 27.01.13

Titchfield Car Club recently was successful in gaining a 2013 National event and will be holding the F2/Junior/Vets event at the back end of the season.

Work has already commenced in preparation for all the 2013 events and this week they were trying out another layout on their track

Weather is bad

The weather the evening beforehand was shocking….Rain rain and more rain
It sort of makes you think why hasn’t a club or even an individual opened an indoor permanent facility that just keeps us dry.

Woke up in the morning and it was dipping it down and now I had to make a decision.
Drive an hour in this relentless rain on a maybe or go back to bed and the warmth.
Knowing that the TORCH crew would do everything in their power to get the event running, and the car was already packed and ready, off I went. Worse way is say hello if it was all cancelled.

Practice

It was near dark when I got to trackside. To my surprise there were committee members already on the track hoovering the water way. Not much one can say to the devotion of the personnel of TORCH. Outstanding!

Around 8.15 ish it was announced that open practice would commence and i was ready. I was pitting under my usual gazebo with Scott Faulkner and Simon Fearn. Goods lad the pair of them and we had a laugh through the day 🙂
I was running yet another set up on my RB6 Kyosho as I get towards the fine tuning option of a base set up.
Car felt very good from word go and had 2 full practice sessions without any major changes

Round 1

OK….of we went and I settled very quickly into the run. Not trying any heroics at this stage proceeded to follow the local lads and ended up with a 2nd in round
Steve Brown TQed round one with a near perfect opening run

Round 2

In round 2 I was determined not to make that one error that pulled me back into the pack like I did in round 1.

Of we went and not starting behind Steve it theoretically should be an easier run following him round.

Its never that easy (LOL)
A good run but the wind got heavier and heavier and everyone was suffering over the jump section.
At one point i thought my car turned into a glider.

Got 3rd in round but could of been so much better.
Steve TQed once more with Mark Sadler in on the 2 spot

Round 3

Decided to make some minor changes to an already good set up.

Steve would lead the top heat out, followed by Mark Sadler and myself.
Steve was really driving very well indeed and he had his RB6 pretty much dialed to his liking.
An early mistake by Mark let me through and i set off to catch or to at least minimise the gap between Steve and I.
The weather certainly didn’t help matters at all.
The wind would just randomly take the flight of the cars at any given lap and we were all in the lap of the Gods when this happened.
On one lap in the run the car just sort of hanged in the air just waiting for someone to snap some pictures but only to land on the track marker and yet again ruin another fair and decent run

Same for everyone though so no complaints at all

Round 4

I don’t recall actually taking a snap shoot of the results in round 4 but after a small about of rain the track slowed up a little and there wasn’t any significant faster times than before

Chris Ellis

Chris Ellis one of the organisers of the Surrey and Hants club in Farnborough Hampshire making the main A Final with his Kyosho DB1.

Chris has been an ambassador for the sport for many many years and now enjoys his racing more than ever.

Chris and I go back over 20 years and it is very pleasing to see him getting good results

Well dome mate

The triple Jump at TORCH

A critical part of TORCH is their triple jump sequence. The wind today though was causing havoc

Final

The main A Final started with a few laughs on the rostrum as Jays car started to have a mind of its self and went off on its own. We all checked up and waited but all started laughing when Jay said it does it all the time – LOL

The buzzer went and we all started very clean. From 2nd on the grid i put some early pressure on Steve with lap 2 being my actual fastest lap of the final and the 3rd fastest of the main.
Steve kept cool as ever and went about his business.
Mark and Sam to be fair were not being dropped…far from it in fact.
Sam got by Mark for 3rd and when i made a small error he didn’t hesitate to go by into 2nd place.

Many places swapped between all of us all the way down the main final but Steve held off Sam to take the win.

I was possibly trying a little too hard and a few error really took me out of the equation for the win but finished 3rd at the end.

Conclusion is simple here.
Compliments to everyone at TORCH for yet another smoothly run meeting manner in horrible weather conditions